“Trump’s White House Toilets Were ‘Periodically’ Clogged With Torn-Up Papers, New Book Says: White House staffers thought Donald Trump himself was to blame, according to [the author]” —HuffPost
There once was a loser named Trump,
Oh so petulant, peevish and plump; Who would clog up his loo With a buttload of poo
And a classified document dump.
Now the National Archives is pissed;
For the files that no longer exist Have been flushed down the john By the con called The Don
Who thought they would never be missed.
Though those records cannot reappear,
If comeuppance comes later this year, On a bowl with no seat In a cell on D Street,
45 will be parking his rear.
“Rotterdam to Partly Dismantle Historic Bridge for Jeff Bezos’s Superyacht” —The Guardian
I like to think that I’m a guy who’s always building bridges
(Though I define it differently than most),
But this one isn’t tall or wide enough by several smidges,
Which means my boat can’t make it to the coast.
I’m in five hundred million on this One Percent construction,
A tidy sum, I think you’d have to say.
So history be Rotterdamned—I mean to see reduction,
And I’ll write checks until I get my way.
“Russian gallery security guard accused of drawing eyes on … Anna Leporskaya’s work Three Figures.” —BBC News
Three figures, faceless for some hundred years,
Were given eyes of ballpoint. Had they tears,
Let’s hope they shed them in a timely gush,
Evading the eraser and the brush;
But I suspect they stretched those doodles wide,
Rejoicing in a sense so long denied.
“Look! I can see!” they thought, but did not say
(That’s an ambition for another day).
“Creepy ice formations appear after winter storm” —Fox News
Close your eyes quickly. Speak it not aloud:
The iceman cometh, in his hood, or shroud,
Paler than leprosy, his head held low,
Praying, perhaps (ah, better not to know!).
Whom has he come for? Clasp your children hard;
His long, thin hand is reaching—but regard:
Who are these little figures, lithely leaping,
With tiny, shiny scythes, too cute for reaping?
I know not, but they seem less grim than glad.
“We’ve made a snowman! And it’s just like Dad!”
“[Ski jumping] is ‘one of the most eating-disorder plagued sports’… ‘If you’re lighter, you have an advantage’…
‘There will be consequences to not fueling your body how it should be fueled, maybe not right away, but over time.’” —The Miami Herald
Lightfully flightfully,
underweight ski jumpers
aerodynamically
riding the breeze
find in the long run that
non-alimentary
diets can put them out
over their skis.
“Following protests of Spotify kicked off by Neil Young over the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation [by Joe Rogan],
the music streaming service said that it will add content advisories before podcasts discussing the virus.”
—The Washington Times
“Dominic Cummings says it is his ‘duty to get rid’ of Boris Johnson: Former No 10 chief adviser describes effort to remove PM from office as ‘sort of like fixing the drains’” —The Guardian
Dom Cummings here. I used to be your brains Regarding everything. Now I pursue A duty that’s a lot like fixing drains— It’s dirty work that someone has to do. News leakers, you, Sue Gray and I all know Redactions—hiding snakiness—aren’t quite Enough to save your skin. To whistle-blow, PM, is dutiful, when spite makes right! … Absorbed in thoughts of monuments to you, Imagining you’re Emperor of Rome Revived, you ditched the brains you needed to Move Downing Street beyond a halfwit’s home … A drain repairman’s master of the snake— Now I must flush you out, for duty’s sake!
“A butterfly conservatory is shutting down due to right-wing harassment” —NPR
The chainsaws came to clear a way For MAGA’s border wall.
Our Center sued, so, sad to say, Receives threats that appall.
Their right-wing source seems not to care For our life’s how and why.
Perhaps they’ll learn. We hope we’re there. It takes two wings to fly.
“Polar bears move into abandoned weather station” —The Guardian
At first, we must suppose, it was a game;
They saw a box, and in they shambled: males,
Then mums and cubs. And soon it seemed a shame
Not to explore, to climb the stairs; when gales
Rattled the window-frames, they learned to peep,
Dusty but cozy. By and by the dust
Must have grown irksome, so they learned to sweep,
Then decorate: some chairs; some art—a bust;
A paint job (something bright, for winter nights);
Curtains, and under-curtains—even though
They had no neighbors but the Northern Lights,
You’d think. They instituted, even so,
Some sort of spy-hole in the door, a lock,
And marks we could not fail to read: PLEASE KNOCK.
“Eric Chicken, Faculty Senate president and professor of statistics at Florida State,
called the [building] revelations ‘serious news,’ saying, ‘I expect that FSU will do everything
it can to protect the members of our university community.'” —Inside Higher Ed
Chicken isn’t too concerned
by the facts he’s so far learned.
“I expect that FSU
will do what it needs to do.”
Others aren’t quite so sure.
Radon, “black debris,” and more
are a daily source of harm
leading to the Profs’ alarm!
Not to worry. There’s an answer
to the spread—and threat—of cancer.
There has been a full report.
There’ll be others of that sort.
Meanwhile, air vents filled with gunk
have been tossed, with other junk.
Everyone can see the meaning
of this careful, thorough cleaning.
Everyone who thinks upon it
can be reassured we’re on it.
Though, of course, all should be prudent:
Do not share this with a student.
Do not blabber to the Press.
We will make it through, we guess.
“Police suspect that a dead man who was brought to a post office in Ireland
by two men trying to claim his pension had died just hours before the incident. Gardaí have ruled out foul play” —The Guardian
The Gardai guards are far from lax:
We always pay attention.
The dear departed pay no tax,
And therefore draw no pension,
So when we see one in the queue
With pension book out ready,
Between two smooth explainers who
Support him like a teddy,
We move to stop them at the till,
Evincing our awareness:
We’re ruling out foul play, but still,
We’re ruling in unfairness.
